


That would be enough

by teeglow



Series: Constance and Aramis, heart to heart [1]
Category: The Musketeers (2014)
Genre: Heart-to-Heart, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Possibly Unrequited Love, Sibling Bonding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-18
Updated: 2017-04-18
Packaged: 2018-10-20 16:22:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,973
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10666371
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/teeglow/pseuds/teeglow
Summary: Post S1 E9 'Knight Takes Queen' - D'Artagnan's moved out and Constance finds herself sitting with a very distracted-looking Aramis in the garrison. A heart-to-heart takes place.





	That would be enough

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place after the events of 'Knight Takes Queen' but I may have fudged the timelines a bit so allow me a tidbit of artistic license. D'Art isn't living with the Bonacieux's anymore (he showed up at the garrison a bit unhappy and the boys know something is up but NOT EXACTLY WHAT until later when D'Art gets drunk and spills it all but that is after this) and no one knows about the Dauphin yet. 
> 
> Please enjoy regardless.

Aramis is distracted but he's hoping no one has noticed. He is trying his level best to look as though he's cleaning his pistols, munching an apple, cleaning his knives, having a little walk around the garrison, being casual Aramis doing casual things but when he walks into Constance at the gate, he thinks he might be failing miserably. She stumbles and he immediately reaches out to steady her by the elbows.

'Oi, watch where you're going,' she says, straightening up and dusting herself down. She looks up at him, not unkindly, but her face softens a little further when she catches his face. 'What's got you so distracted, hmm?'

Aramis raises his eyebrows, simultaneously surprised and annoyingly unsurprised that she has seen straight through him. He runs his hand through his hair and moves to sit back on the bench, next to his impeccably clean pistols. 

'Who said I was distracted?' he says, sitting down and turning on his smile, deflecting like he does it every day of his life. 'Perhaps it is you who was distracted, dear Constance. I suspect you're missing your lodger. I assume it is him you are here to see?'

A faint blush rises in Constance's cheek. 'I am, as it happens.' She sets down the basket she's carrying next to Aramis on the table. 'He left some stuff when he left. Not much but I'd think he'd like it. And in any case, my husband- well, I'd hate to see it get thrown out.' She wipes her hands down her dress and looks a little sad.

Aramis' posture changes, a little looser now as he bows his head slightly, his brown eyes more sincere than they had been when he'd been teasing her. 'My apologies, I thought you might be on better terms.' 

She waves off his apology. 'I thought he might- but- Well anyway. See that he gets that.' She nods at the basket and turns to leave. Aramis has a quick glance into the basket and sees that she's right, it isn't much, a couple of handkerchiefs that D'Artagnan wouldn't miss and Aramis thinks about Constance walking all this way just to bring them to him. He takes pity on her. 

'You can wait for him with me if you'd like.' Constance turns back to look at him and Aramis removes his cleaning rag from the seat beside him, nodding towards the empty space. 'I could do with the company.'

Her small smile stretches briefly at the edges before muting itself again, touched by his offer, and so, sighing a little dramatically and rolling her eyes for good measure, she acquiesces, pulling her skirts forward delicately as she seats herself on the rough wood beside him. She gives him a friendly sideways glance and thinks off-handedly that she had never realised how big he was until now. Not that he was big, per se, just- well, soldiery. His hands were black from oiling his pistols and she could see the frays in his shirt sleeves. She'd always seen him as a bit of a notorious dandy, if truth be told, he was never serious around her enough for her to take him seriously. But as always, the more time she spent with him, she understood why the other boys enjoyed his company so much. He inexplicably made her feel warm.

They sat there for a moment in companionable silence, Aramis wiping his hands on his rag and Constance fiddling with her fingers in her lap. They smiled at one another.

'I'm sorry if I said something unkind before,' he says softly. 'D'Artagnan didn't tell us everything that went on between you both.'

She looks sad to hear so and glances down into her lap before replying. 'It was a bit sudden, that's all.' She pauses. 'And you know my husband. He's not the most understanding person.'

Aramis snorts at that and she half-smiles up at him before remembering that Jacques is her husband and she shouldn't, she shouldn't be smiling at his expense. She shakes her head and looks down again. 'It's for the best, I suppose,' she says quietly.

'Constance, nothing is for the best if it makes you unhappy.'

She almost gasps, she swears it, because how can he say something so sweet, so kind and so exactly what she was thinking, even as she's trying not to think it. She is suddenly reminded of what he was like with Agnes.

'Forgive me,' he says, a hand over his heart. 'I didn't mean to overstep the mark.'

'You didn't,' she says, her tone changing, slipping from sadness to frankness. She puts her tiny hand over his gently. 'Thank you. Thank you for saying that but- it's complicated. My husband-'

'-is a swine?'

'-Loves me,' she continues, reprimanding Aramis with her eyes as she continues. 'It isn't fair to carry on behind his back.' She shrugs. 'It was just a dream, that's all. A hopeless dream.'

Aramis lifts his hand to take her little one into his and turns his whole body towards her earnestly. 'No dream is hopeless, Constance. D'Artagnan loves you. He won't forget you so easily.'

She smiles sadly. 'I fear he already has.' She removes her hand from his, patting it gently. 'And he should. I'm married. I will be for a long time to come. Nothing good can come of us pining for one another. I want him to be happy.'

Aramis says nothing, just looks at her for a small time. 'Oh Constance. I wish you knew how much he wants the same for you.'

She looks down and nods because she does know, she does, but it's not as easy as all that, is it, when Jacques is languishing at home. Constance hates herself for feeling sick at the thought of returning home to him when he says he loves her. She closes her eyes to stop the tears from coming, not here, in front of the entire garrison.

Aramis scoots closer and gives her arm a gentle rub. 'I'm sorry,' he says, and she knows he is. She composes herself after a second and nudges him with her shoulder.

'What about you, eh? What's got you in a fix?'

Aramis' walls seem to come down at that and his hand runs through his hair again. 'Ah, me. You know me. It's nothing.'

'Aramis,' Constance says sternly. 'We might not have known each other long but I like to think I know you well enough now to be privy to your problems, especially since you are privy to mine.' She raises her eyebrows expectantly. 

He shrugs. 'I promise you, I'm fine.'

'So fine that you've almost cleaned your muskets into obscurity and run your grubby hands through your hair so much that it's home to a nest of baby birds, that sort of fine?' 

He huffs and tries to flatten his curls a bit. 'Really, Constance, there's nothing-'

'You know, Athos once told me a story about a friend who took a musket ball to the shoulder in battle and told everyone he was fine before swooning ten minutes later at feet of his horse and I'm starting to suspect I might know who that friend was now.'

'Yes, well, that was different-'

'Different as in you're not bleeding from a gunshot wound, different?'

'Well, yes, that and that-'

'Aramis,' she says kindly, placing her hand over his again. 'It's okay.'

He sighs and she watches as he visibly slumps, his hands coming to rest on his face. 'It's complicated, is all.'

'More complicated than a married woman in love with someone else who isn't her husband?'

Aramis huffs a laugh because she's hit the nail on the head, that's the entire situation isn't it, apart from actually, Aramis realises, in this case, he is D'Artagnan and Constance is the Queen of France. 

So maybe it is a touch more complicated after all.

'It's nothing, not really. Nothing I've not done before. Athos says I make a habit of longing for what I can't have.' He smiles at her but looks away quickly. Her listening expression is so disarming and he's scared everything will pour right out of him before he knows it. And he can't put her in that position.

Constance tilts her head slightly as he glances away from her. She's seen Aramis do many things but he's never not met her eyes before. He deliberately looks away, from his hands, to the sky, to the bit of apple peel on the ground from where he'd thrown it earlier. She thinks she recognises the look on his face. She thinks it might be the same look he'd spotted on hers. 

'Aramis?'

'Hmm?'

'Are you in love with someone?'

He scoffs but it comes too quickly and rings too false. 'Constance, you know me. I love everyone.'

'You know what I mean.'

'I can't be in love with just one person.'

'Aramis,' she says sternly. 'I don't believe you.'

Aramis almost wants to cry because he's tried so hard to cultivate a reputation that allows the world to see him as – what was it Ninon called him? A Libertine? - and yet Constance, as always, comes in and cuts him to the quick. Aramis has always been able to love people; if anything, it comes too easily to him. But it's never come cheap.

'It's complicated.'

'So you said.'

He sighs. 'I can't talk about it. And there's nothing to say. It's impossible. Nothing but a dream.'

'I thought you said no dream was impossible?'

He laughs. 'I said no dream was hopeless.'

'Isn't that the same thing?'

Aramis shakes his head, smiling even though seconds ago he felt like shaking apart from the frustration of being in love and being able to do nothing about it. Constance really was the most calming person to be around. Everyone needed a Constance and truly, Aramis counted himself lucky that Constance was his. 'You know, I get what D'Artagnan sees in you.'

'My relentless pursuit of other people's gossip?'

'No, your relentless capacity to make people feel warm.'

She smiles, blushes faintly, wondering if he knows he feels quite the same to her. 'You're very kind.'

'No, Constance, you are.' He pulls up her hand and kisses it. 

She rolls her eyes. 'You never stop do you? With the old romantic bit?'

'What can I say, I am an old romantic.'

'Too true,' she replies, knowingly and he sighs.

'I really can't tell you anything, Constance. Would that I could.'

'Well in that case, I hope at least she knows.'

'Knows?'

'That you love them. That's all anyone really needs.'

Aramis smiles. 'She knows.'

Constance grins. 'Good.' Dusk has fallen since they have been speaking and she gasps having not noticed it before. 'I best be off, Bonacieux will be wondering where I've got to.' She gets to her feet and looks back longingly at the basket discarded on the table. 'See that he gets that, will you?'

Aramis nods and stands beside her. 'I will. Get home safely now.'

She reaches up to kiss him on the cheek. 'I will. Thank you, Aramis.'

'You too.'

She rushes off, Aramis thinks it's the fear of seeing D'Artagnan after all and the thought floods to him that he never told her. 

'Constance!' he calls out, just as she reaches the gate. She turns back.

'D'Artagnan knows, too,' he says. 'Deep down.'

Constance looks startled but her face breaks into a rueful smile and she nods. 'Good,' she says again and she waves him goodbye.

Aramis waves back and thinks that she's right. He might not know whether Anne truly loves him back, he might not ever know (though he thinks she does). But she knows he loves her, there's no doubt in his mind.

And it's enough for now.


End file.
